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Shaun opens with a reference to a workshop at the first national gathering of the U.S. Transition movement: “All 180 attendees at that gathering were gifted a copy of Surviving the Future, courtesy of a wealthy fan of the book, and to honour Fleming’s influence on the birth of Transition“. He refers to Mark Boyle’s article in The Guardian and we note this paragraph:

“The late David Fleming – one of the greatest thinkers you’ve probably never heard of – said in his recent posthumously published magnum opus, Lean Logic, that “localisation stands, at best, at the limits of practical possibility, but it has the decisive argument in its favour that there will be no alternative”.

A Spanish publisher has now signed up to translate and publish Surviving the Future for the world’s half-billion Spanish speakers!

Shaun continues: “And filming is now underway for an hour-long film on David Fleming’s life, legacy and vision, provisionally titled The Seed Beneath The Snow! BAFTA lifetime achievement award winning director Peter Armstrong is at the helm, and I hope to be able to include an early teaser clip in the next update – stay tuned…”

Written opinion pieces about the books have been published by OpenDemocracy, Kosmos, Permaculture magazine and Chelsea Green. And other thinkers are beginning to riff off Fleming’s work, from renowned philosopher Roger Scruton’s thoughtful essay relating traditional conservatism to Fleming’s environmentalism, to Patrick Noble dedicating his latest book to the inspiration he found in Lean Logic! Dan Jones, originator of Lean Thinking, has also been in touch to express his delight at the “mightily impressive tome”, while influential writer Richard Heinberg’s powerful piece “Are We Doomed? Let’s Have a Talk” has been sparking a lot of conversations online this week.

VIDEO (8 mins): 2016 event at Trinity College, Oxford University, Jonathon Porritt and Shaun Chamberlin discuss the work of David Fleming (Trinity alumnus ) focusing on economic collapse and the rediscovery of culture grounded in place. They were celebrating the launch of ‘Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It’ and the paperback ‘Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy’.

Fleming’s work highlights that “most of human history was bred, fed and watered by another sort of economy. But the market has replaced, as far as possible, the social capital of reciprocal obligation, loyalties, culture and traditions with exchange, price and the impersonal principles of economics”

As the market economy continues to crumble under the weight of its own impossible need for perpetual growth, we should admit that for all its destructiveness, we will miss its essential simplicity, the comforts it delivers to many and the freedoms it underwrites. And as ‘austerity’ bites and capitalism’s former largesse continues to shrink away, that future is becoming daily reality for ever more of us.

Such a time brings fear and uncertainty, but also great possibility. The forces that have cocooned us are failing, but these are also the forces that constrained us. This is a time of loss and freedom, if we can minimise our dependence on the market and find sustenance with deeper

Now is the time to repair or replace the atrophied social and ecological structures on which most human cultures were built, as the basis for a nourishing, cohesive society that might survive the turbulent times to come. This is the story of our times, and living it imbues our days with meaning.

With Shaun Chamberlin, Rob Hopkins, Mark Boyle and Stephan Harding

Shaun Chamberlin (link is external) is the editor of his late friend David Fleming’s posthumous book Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It, and the paperback version Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy. Shaun was a co-founder of Transition Town Kingston and author of the movement’s second book, The Transition Timeline (2009), and has since contributed to more than ten other books. Living on little money has enabled him to devote himself to roles such as chair of the Ecological Land Co-operative and a director of the campaigning organisation Global Justice Now, and he is currently Chelsea Green Publishing’s commissioning editor for the UK/Europe. Read the Q&A put out by Positive News.

Rob Hopkins (link is external) is the co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and of the Transition Network. This grew out of many years’ experience in education, teaching permaculture and natural building, and setting up the first two-year full-time permaculture course in the world, as well as co-ordinating the first eco-village development in Ireland to be granted planning permission. He is author of The Transition Handbook (2008), The Transition Companion (2011), The Power of Just Doing Stuff (2013) and 21 Stories of Transition (2015), served 3 years as a Trustee of the Soil Association, and was named by the Independent as one of the UK’s top 100 environmentalists. He lives in Devon and grows food for his family.

Mark Boyle is widely known as ‘The Moneyless Man’, after living completely without money for almost three years, an experience which formed the basis for his first book, The Moneyless Man (2010) and his second, The Moneyless Manifesto (2012). He is also a trustee of the Streetbank sharing network, holds a degree in Business and spent his earlier professional career involved in the management of organic food companies. He is the author of Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi (2015), and is currently engaged in creating a fully localised, land-based gift economy in Éire, putting his holistic ideas into practice.

Stephan Harding is Programme Coordinator of the MSc in Holistic Science and resident Ecologist at Schumacher College, teaching on the MSc core modules and on many of the short courses. He holds a doctorate in behavioural ecology from Oxford University, and before becoming a founder member of the College taught ecology at the National University in Costa Rica. He is a close associate of James Lovelock and an expert in the study of Gaia theory and deep ecology. He is the author of Animate Earth (2009) and Grow Small, Think Beautiful: Ideas for a Sustainable World from Schumacher College (2011).

David Fleming (1940-2010) was an inspiration to all our teachers. He himself taught at Schumacher College, and was a visionary thinker and writer who played significant roles in the genesis of the UK Green Party, the Transition Towns movement, and the New Economics Foundation, as well as chairing the Soil Association. He was also one of the early whistle-blowers on oil depletion and designer of the influential TEQs carbon/energy rationing system. He read Modern History at Trinity College, Oxford, and later earned an MBA and then an MSc and PhD in economics (in 1988). These enabled him to better engage with and confound the mainstream, in support of his true passion and genius: understanding that diverse and mysterious thing “community.” His Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It (link is external) was the work of over thirty years, and will inform this short course.

Fee:

£ 795.00

Course fees include all meals, field trips, materials and all teaching sessions. The programme will run from Monday to Friday afternoon, and includes four nights private accommodation and all vegetarian meals from the first lunchtime you arrive through until the lunchtime before your departure.

Short Course Information

Are you ready for economic change? Help create a system fit for the challenges of the 21st Century and become a leader in our new low-carbon, resilient and equitable economy. Learn from the cutting-edge thinkers, practitioners and activists who are making economic change a global reality – starts September 2017.Learn More…

Shaun has now madeDavid Fleming‘s unique masterwork Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It, available to pre-order in the UK, click here.

It has been produced with an exceptional level of care and attention from Chelsea Green’s design team – who told Shaun they felt they were handling a classic. The book has a foreword from Jonathon Porritt, completed endnotes and (epic!) bibliography, full index, editor’s preface and several wood engravings selected or commissioned by David. Shaun has also edited a paperback version – Surviving the Future – in a more conventional read-it-front-to-back format, and at around a quarter of the length.